Reference Pricing and Price Shopping Hold Potential Peril for Both Clinical Laboratories and Consumers

While multiple studies show reference pricing is an effective approach to reduce the cost of testing and procedures, medical laboratories and consumers alike must continue to focus on quality to ensure positive outcomes The Dark Report in its September 2016 issue highlighted how reference pricing is positioned to become one of the biggest contributors to price erosion medical laboratories and pathology groups have faced in more than a decade. The issue featured details of a 2016 study...

Health Insurers Encourage Physicians to Help Patients Use Cost and Quality Data to Select Providers, Including Medical Laboratories

Employers and health insurers want more consumers use healthcare cost estimator tools and pride when choosing a hospital, physician, or clinical laboratory Having put millions of consumers into high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) as one way to control healthcare costs, both employers and health insurers are now challenged to help these same consumers do better at using price and quality factors when selecting providers. One solution to this problem is to encourage physicians to play a greater...

Consumers Now Use Medical Cost Websites to Price Shop for Clinical Pathology Laboratory Tests and Other Medical Procedures

Before consumers visit a clinical laboratory, they can now check the “fair” price of medical laboratory tests. New websites have sprung up that make it easy for consumers to find what experts consider to be fair market prices for each type of lab test, as well as for other medical procedures and healthcare services.

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